Our opinion: Commitment

June 28, 2012

Northwest Savings held another block party in Warren on Wednesday to celebrate another J.D. Power award for excellence.

This is a hat-trick for Northwest, a regional banking group that is a homegrown Warren business.

While the balloons, noisemakers, speeches and merriment were on Liberty Street, important work was progressing in a a dusty area between Pennsylvania and Second avenues that portends good things for the bank and very good things for the community it calls home.

To say that Northwest is an important component of Warren's economy, and its downtown in particular, is something of an understatement. It is an important employer, a business that provides millions in payroll and thus hundreds of thousands in payroll taxes, and does it all without polluting.

Over the next several months as its second major physical expansion in 10 years takes shape, it will be even more apparent that Northwest is here to stay.

In the time it has taken for the bank's corporate headquarters to jump across Liberty Street from its original headquarters to now, Warren County has experienced an ebb and flow of employment in other sectors of the economy -unfortunately, more ebb than flow.

Northwest's continued success in the banking industry and its obvious commitment to Warren -companies don't spend the kind of money Northwest is pouring into its downtown building project without commitment - is welcome news, particularly in an uncertain economy.

We congratulate the administration and staff of Northwest for a third J.D. Power award in a row and thank them for their commitment to Warren.